Natty Narwhal

[innerspace]

Ubuntu 11.04 Beta 2 came out yesterday and the release is due in 2 weeks so wondering if anyone has given it a go yet?

Going to have to get a live disc running for a test when I get the time.

All the reviews on unity seem mixed, although a lot of complaints in the last alpha seem to have been sorted in the beta.

[JimShortz]

I installed it yesterday and am using it to reply at the moment. I liked the idea of the Unity desktop, but unfortunately it is awfully slow - so slow I thought there was something wrong with my installation until I switched back to the Gnome desktop (now called Gnome Classic within Ubuntu - a very Windows style name...).

Since I am not using the Unity interface there is little difference from 10.10 that I have noticed yet, apart from some updated programmes and a few changes in behaviour (such as drag a window to the top to maximise it - god knows why we need this...).

I hope Unity is faster in the final release or this is an unmitigated disaster; new users will be disappointed to say the least. I am on a dual core system with 2 meg of Ram and a 3d graphics card and so expect Ubuntu to be fast. At the moment I regard Unity as unusable. Doh!

[JimShortz]

A quick update:

Using 11.04 Beta 2 I have found loads of strange behaviours from the OS, Libre Office (in place of Open Office) is a change i don't want or need (and it wouldn't open some of my Open Office files!), and Unity is a complete waste of time as it stands - but would be great if it worked without lag...

I am writing this from a netbook running 10.10 Netbook Remix with the brand new GLX - Cairo Dock (came out two days ago) instead of a bottom panel - very Mac like, but great nevertheless, and no lag!

My main desktop will be going back to the last LTS (Long Term Support) release, 10.04, with the new Cairo Dock in place of the bottom panel. This seems to me to be a much more elegant solution than Unity, and it works properly (in fact very beautifully).

It will be a long while before I contemplate 11.04 (if ever). I might hang on with 10.04 until 12.04 is released; that being the next LTS release of Ubuntu.

Here's a link to info about the new Cairo Dock if anyone is interested: http://www.unixmen.com/linux-tutorials/1650-cairo-dock-23-comes-with-better-compiz-integration-new-themes-system-monitor-applet-and-more)

[dave_boo]

A quick update:

Using 11.04 Beta 2 I have found loads of strange behaviours from the OS, Libre Office (in place of Open Office) is a change i don't want or need (and it wouldn't open some of my Open Office files!), and Unity is a complete waste of time as it stands - but would be great if it worked without lag...

I am writing this from a netbook running 10.10 Netbook Remix with the brand new GLX - Cairo Dock (came out two days ago) instead of a bottom panel - very Mac like, but great nevertheless, and no lag!

My main desktop will be going back to the last LTS (Long Term Support) release, 10.04, with the new Cairo Dock in place of the bottom panel. This seems to me to be a much more elegant solution than Unity, and it works properly (in fact very beautifully).

It will be a long while before I contemplate 11.04 (if ever). I might hang on with 10.04 until 12.04 is released; that being the next LTS  release of Ubuntu.

Here's a link to info about the new Cairo Dock if anyone is interested: http://www.unixmen.c...applet-and-more)

Whenever I do a Linux Mint install I make sure that AWM has been added.  Straight out of the repository and people get all goo-goo over it.  You of course need to make sure that compiz is running.

Some cool features is on mouse over you can have squish (makes the icons behave as if they were compressed and bounce up), classic (pops them up a la OSX), fade (does exactly what it says), spotlight (shines a spot light up on the icon and can be combined with the next one...my favourite), 3d turn (spins the icon around like a top), glow (exact opposite of fade), or even a custom where you control all aspects you can think of and mix & match the various previously listed actions.  Support for plugins is nice (and underutilised by many) and a large selection of customisation options allow you to make it yours.

[justsumhelp]

.deb or .rpm.... if you want looks compiz will make everything look like you want to i.e. OSX. Stability is crap on Natty, but much more stable than OSX or W7. LTS is running strong

[chiangmaiexpat]

There are no stability issues with Natty. At least I didn't find any. Same old Ubuntu quality that I have been used to for many years. If you are running a beta, it's a different story of course, since the Canonical engineers have been scrambling to get Unity ready for the release.

The new Unity interface is a matter of taste. I do like it and I have decided to stick with it (after some Compiz fine-tuning). You can easily switch back to the old GNOME shell by selecting "Ubuntu Classic" instead of "Ubuntu" from the drop-down-box at the login screen. I can't quite understand what all the fuss about Unity is about. It's just makeup in my view.

Cheers, CMX

[zzSleepyJohn]

I upgraded to Natty from Karmic Koala in June this year. Not a totally smooth transition, I'd say. A few of my previously installed programmes such as Skype, Cheese, GIMP, and my printer didn't transfer and I had to re-install them. The new Firefox 5 doesn't have the same convenient newsfeed as before, and the new desktop has a programme launch bar that seems to have a mind of its own.

I went to quite a lot of trouble to backup my home folder and all of my previously installed SeaMonkey browser and mailclient before I upgraded, but in the event this wasn't necessary since all that transferred smoothly and automatically. So there's a bit of a new learning curve involved, but I'm slowly getting to grips with it!

I'm still struggling with a hibernation problem in Natty that wasn't evident in Karmic, though. Fuller details HERE. Basically after waking up from hibernation, Natty doesn't clear the swapfile, so after a 2nd hibernation wakeup, there just isn't enough spare swapfile to do a 3rd. If anyone else has tried hibernation with Natty, I'd be interested to hear if you're seeing the same problem or not.

All in all, Natty feels as if it's trying to be a bit cleverer than Karmic, thinks it knows what I want from it and tends to assume I'm just another typical game-playing and movie-downloading user (which I'm not) , rather like Windows does! I guess this tends to make it more resource-hungry, and although it's managing OK on my currently installed 1.25GiB RAM, if and when I go for a new computer, I reckon I'd better go for a minimum 2GiB RAM.